The idea of manufacturing an artificial silk was not new when Cross, Bevan and Beadle took out their Viscose patent in 1892. Filaments had been produced from cellulose nitrate as early as 1855 but these were explosively inflammable.

 

Sir Joseph Swan, primarily interested in fibres from which to make electric lamp filaments had also had some success with cellulose nitrate. He reduced flammability by partial denitration of the filaments and produced some interesting artificial silks in 1883. Chardonnet introduced his artificial silk in 1885, also from partially de-nitrated cellulose nitrate, but flammability was still too high.

 

Cellulose fibres regenerated from a cuprammonium solution were also manufactured but with limited success, although the process was to become successful in much later years.

 

Real success was eventually to come from the regeneration of cellulose filaments from Viscose solution.

 

In order to exploit the 1892 patent, the Viscose Syndicate Ltd. (VSL) was formed in 1894 at Kew in London. Subsequently, Beadle was put in charge of the British Viscoid Co. Ltd. which was established in 1898 at Erith in Kent for the manufacture solid viscose items.

 

The Viscose Spinning Syndicate Ltd (VSSL) was set up in 1898 by Cross and Stearn to investigate the manufacture of artificial silk. Charles Stearn was head of the Zurich Incandescence Lamp Company, also situated in Kew and led the investigation.

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From left to right, the picture shows Cross, Woodley (of ZILC), Edouard Thomas (of VSL), Edwin Beer (chemist with Cross & Bevan), Charles Stearn, Herr Hugo Kolker (of VSL and financial representative of Prince von Donnersmarck), Fred Topham (a manager at ZILC), and Herr Mutar (Kolker's secretary).

 

Stearn and his assistant  TF (Fred) Topham had both worked with Swan during the 1880s. Fred, who was a skilled glass-blower, developed a pump for controlling the flow of viscose solution to the spinnerettes but is most remembered for the Topham Box, a spinning container with a hole in the top through  which  a strand of filaments is dropped. This simultaneously twists the filaments into a yarn and collects it as a 'cake' by centrifugal action. He developed his ideas from earlier devices used in the cotton industry and from Swan's technique of collecting fibres by laying them on a slowly revolving plate.

 

	Top left shows skeins of artificial silk produced by the Viscose Spinning Syndicate. Above shows the first attempt to make coloured silks. Left shows an early knitted stocking. From this, a successful manufacturing process was developed to make mantles for gas lighting.